Is it true that the Vikings drank their enemies from the skulls?

According to a replicated legend, brave Scandinavian sailors made vessels for wine from the bones of defeated opponents. We checked if it was true.

This information can be learned from such popular sources as IA REGNUM, "Fakrum", "Army and Fleet". About such an act by the Yarl Mesang Writes Valentin Ivanov in his historical trilogy "Primordial Rus'." The topic found a response in the famous series "Vikings" and many other works of art.

As an additional evidence of the former popularity of barbaric custom, often bring The exclamation of Skurb, to which modern Danes, Swedes and Norwegians accompany the clinking glasses. The word is erected to Skalle ("Skull"; compare with English Skull), and the association of the exclamation with the Normans became the basis for anthem American football club Minnesota Vikings.

Indeed, evidence of such a practice can be found even in "Songs about the Völunda" - The work included in the "Elder Edda", the main collection of ancient nosandandinavian myths and legends. The title hero, the Finnish king, imprisoned on the island, will singles the sons of his offender, kills, makes bowls from their skulls and sends his father. In another Eddic song "Greenland speeches by ATLI" Gudrun, the widow of Sigurda, kills his sons born of the koning of ATLI, and feeds them with meat, and beer, mixed with blood, brings it in the bowls that she made from their skulls.

Moreover, such vessels, judging by the excavations, were not something rare in real life. They were made in various crops over different periods of time. The three most old cranial bowls were Found In the GOF cave in Somerset, England, and their age is 14,700 years. Other Skulls, processed after the death of their owners and, possibly used as cups, were found in Navinpukio in Peru (400-700) and in the El-Mirador cave in Spain (Bronze Age).

In the Neolithic era in Herksheim (Germany), mass production of cranial bowls was established. In historical records, you can find mentions of the use of skulls as a drinking vessel among the Agrii sect in India and Aborigines in Australia, Fiji and other islands of Oceania. Tibetan cranial bowls, known as Capals, used by Buddhists and Zoroastrians.

There are certificates of certain cases of manufacturing such cups and in Japan And Central Asia. Herodotus reported on such practice Scythians. She did not bypass medieval Europe. George Acropolitan WritesThat the Bulgarian king of the Coaching of about 1205 made a cup of the skull of the Emperor of the Latin Empire of Baldwin I Flanders. The most famous episode in Russia is described in "Tales of temporary years", where the Pecheneg Khan Kuta kills the prince of Kyiv Svyatoslav Igorevich, and then drinks from the bowl, the basis of which is the second skull of a descendant of the Varangians. However, this artifact cannot be found in any museum of the world today, therefore it is difficult to say about its existence ever.

However, even if everything was so, which had a distant Viking Svyatoslav in this case became a victim, and not the initiator. But what about real cases from the history of the Vikings? Alas, this is much more complicated. How Mark Leading researcher at the Laboratory of Medievistic Research by the NRU HSE, head of the Varangian Club Fedor Uspensky And the researcher of the Slavic-German language interaction, Anna Litvin, “The story of the manufacture of a bowl from the head of the enemy is found exclusively in epic songs and in their rather late prose retelling, where we are talking about the same circle of epic characters. In other words, he did not affect neither in scaldic poetry, nor in the so-called historical and realistic sagas, from which we can conclude that this practice in the German world lies more likely in the space of sacred, legendary and, if it may be expressed, poetical linguistic than in the field of relevant medieval military customs, is so for the Scandinavians. The quasi -) is obviously "prehistoric". " The authors of the work are erecting all such stories to antique works, where such actions quite consistent with the barbaric disposition of heroes. The Vikings, despite all their ferocity, were not real barbarians.

So, there are no such information in historical written documents. Archaeologists could solve the issue, however, judging by numerous sources, they are not found in the Scandinavian lands, or rather, in the corresponding cultural layers of the bowl made of skulls. And this is strange, because if such items were widespread everywhere (as films inform us), then at least one would have been found. At the same time, judging by excavations, in this aspect, the life of the Viking was distinguished by a variety: there are horns, and wooden bowls decorated with patterns, and glass cones. But with skulls trouble. A little south, in Prussia, Found Skulls with cut offs, but they are dated with a Neolithic or early Iron Age, and the scope of the cut part is not reliably established.

Where did this stereotype come from about the Vikings with bowls from the remains of its enemies? Partially, for sure from the "senior Edda", however, a number of modern researchers refer to another, much later source of error. In 1651, the Danish naturalist, physician and collector Ole Vorm published his work “Runes: the oldest literature of Denmark”, in which he included a number of translations of ancient runic texts to Latin. The Scaldic poem of the XII century “Kracuman” (“Word of Krak”) entered there. In one of the episodes of the poem It is said: “Drekkum bjór apbragði ór bjúgvióm hausa”, which literally means: “We will soon drink beer from the curved branches of the skulls.” And in the interpretation of the Worm, it turned into “Speerabant Heroes in Aula Outhini Bibituros Ex Craniis Eorum Qvos Occidrant” (“Heroes hoped to get drunk in the Hall of the skulls of those whom they killed”). Although he was Ole Worm Scandinav, however, apparently, he did not fully capture the art of perception Kenning - figurative phrases with which ancient German storytellers denoted more mundane things. For example, the “ship” could appear in their poems as a “horse of the sea”, and by “curved branches of the skulls” it should be understood ... ordinary animal horns. A more correct option given in another publication: "Soon we will drink honey from the bent trees of the forehead of the beast." Here, as you can see, the meaning is more than transparent. So, due to the mistake of the translation, the legend of the Vikings with cups from the skulls of her enemies received additional confirmation.

But what about the exclamation of Skurb (among the Icelanders and Faroers - Skál)? Natalie Kelly and Jost Cetsha in his book “Subtleties of Translation. How language affects our life and transforms the world " Markthat these words linguistically are not related to the word Skull (“skull” - English) and simply mean “bowl” or “vessel for drinking”. Etymologeek resource agrees with them, Breeding Words to the Proterman root Skēlō ("Shell"; hence the English Shell).

Thus, there are no serious grounds to argue that the Vikings - at least more often than in single unverified cases - drank their enemies from the skulls.

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Anna Litvina, Fedor Uspensky. Praise of generosity, a cup of a skull, a golden Luda ...
2. Mark Forsyt. A brief story of drunkenness
3. Natalie Kelly, Jost Cetsha. Subtleties of translation. How language affects our life and transforms the world.
4. DID Vikings Drink from the Skulls of Their Enemies?